Weren't CPM's and traffic supposed to immediately go up?

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   HoneyBBposted 7 years ago

   My CPM's and traffic keep dropping more and more every day. Is it just me? Didn't Paul say the increase in traffic and CPM's would immediately start or did I misread something?

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      Christy Kirwanposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Hi HoneyBB,
      
      Unfortunately, CPMs typically go down in January after the holidays because advertisers are not willing to pay as much during this time of year.

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         HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Christy, I was referring to my cpm's since Jan 1st until yesterday. Every day they drop more and more. My traffic hasn't dropped that much just my cpms. I expected them to drop and average out or go up a little down a little but they keep going down, down, down. I thought with this new platform or ad tech or whatever it's called it would get better. I'll try to be more patient and see what February brings. I appreciate your time in answering.

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            Christy Kirwanposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            We are going to start working on ad yields as a major project for 2018, but unfortunately this is a planned project that has not been started yet and will likely take months.

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         RonElFranposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         My CPMs during the last 3 days of December were steady at a relatively high rate. Then, overnight, there was a 38% drop between Dec 31 and Jan 1. So, it does seem that lower CPMs are a function of the calendar.

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            HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks for responding Ron. I'm beginning to see that is exactly what's happening.

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   TeriSilverposted 7 years ago

   My numbers have dropped, too.

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   DrMark1961posted 7 years ago

   When I read your comment here HoneyBB I went and checked my account page. My CPMs are definitely down since last month but are still several dollars higher than they were this time last year. Check yours and see if your results are about the same.

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      HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks DrMark, I did check my cpms for this time last year and they are up about 2 to 3 dollars this year.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 7 years ago

   I thought Paul said they had been implementing some of Maven's advice already and had already seen a benefit in the last quarter.  For that reason, I didn't think they were planning on changing anything right now.

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      lobobrandonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Yup that is why we all had the uptick in CPMs in December (maybe also November I don't remember). This was work done by advice from Maven, now working directly with them may open more doors, I would say this is what is being referred to.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         That's what I thought, but obviously they'll be busy implementing the nuts and bolts of the merger right now, they won't be able to start "working directly with them" until the deal is done.

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            HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Yes Marissa, thanks for your input. I was confused by what Paul said. I thought since they already implemented Maven's ad technology in December that it would stay in place and continue to bring high cpms but I got a rude awakening. lol. Now it seems it might take a couple of months to be in fully set up. Time will tell.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I'm absolutely sure they have left it in place.   However we are still subject to seasonal fluctuations.

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                  HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Oh ok. That's what I was wondering. Thanks Marissa. In the first days of January I thought it was the season but as it kept going down I thought maybe they only used Maven's ad tech for December but it makes more since that the continual fall is just seasonal.

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   Cheeky Kidposted 7 years ago

   Personally, I have no issues with the very low CPMs. It's to be expected that they plummet from January onwards and stabilize thereafter.
   
   What I'm concerned with now is the abysmally low count of "Impressions." I've got twice the views as compared to last year (as seen on the hubpages stat page and google analytics stat page), yet impressions remain the same, if not lower. Maybe it's just me, but I'm extremely curious as to how impressions really work. It's like my efforts to increase traffic, which did increase significantly, were all for naught because impressions wont hold up with the views.

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      HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Impressions, I believe, are measured by how long an ad is visible to the person reading your article. If the person has ads blocked or if they don't read down the page to get to the ad it won't register any impressions however you will still have a page view. My impressions usually don't fluctuate much.

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   Kain 360posted 7 years ago

   My CPM has took a massive drop. And I mean super massive! Last month, I had days where I had a CPM of $6.00-$8.00  which I never had when I used to write on HP in 2011-2012 with a lot of traffic!!
   
   Now my CPM is below $2.00 which is horrendous. Even if I had triple the amount of traffic, my income would still be lower than last month, ironically.
   
   I'm hoping next month is better cause I'm going to start work on articles again. Don't want potential views to go to waste if you know what I mean.

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      HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I'm sure they will. Look at your cpm's from last year at this time and I bet they're higher than they were then. Mine are. And, it sounds like January is always the toughest month. Traffic and cpm's should be rising within the next few months anyhow because of the new ad tech. Hang in there. It will get better.

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         Kain 360posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I can't compare last year because I was not writing on here. But yes, I've heard things have improved across the board.

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   Leonard Tillermanposted 7 years ago

   I for one am not overly worried about my massive drop in CPM.  My traffic is higher now than it has ever been and know the CPM will follow suit eventually.  I understand the concern of everyone however.  I do think when we look at these things we need to analyze it over a period of time and compare.  What goes down will eventually go up...  (and vice-versa)

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   Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years ago

   There are no guarantees. About all you can be sure of is that traffic and earnings will fluctuate. While my earnings have dropped compared to last month, they are doing pretty well compared to my historic average.

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   EricFarmer8xposted 7 years ago

   Mine are going down but I am getting more views and impressions. Right now I am trying to focus on making better content as my earnings are small right now anyways.

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      HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Good plan! I am working on that too.

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    Jean Harrisposted 7 years ago

    Hi folks, I know I'm new here but I've been involved in web development since I worked for a high tech company in 1998 and SEO is a passion of mine for my own web properties. I thought I would add my two cents to this topic since I see it repeated a lot, in every forum I'm a member of.
    
    CPM, or earnings per impression, will fluctuate for so many different reasons it's impossible to list them all here but what you need to keep in mind is that you should probably pay much less attention to it than you might be right now and pay more attention to simply creating additional top quality content.
    
    Hubpages can help improve CPM by attracting more money into the system, which they work hard at, but even that doesn't guarantee more earnings for any publisher. One may see a rise while another a loss anyway. It depends on so many things ranging from topic to time of year to the weather even. My point is to focus your creative time on creating new content and improving old content and not on pouring over stats. We all do it, the trick is not to do it too much or waste too much of our creative time in those stat reports! They will have ups and downs no matter what you do but if you don't create you don't add value to your own portfolio. Create, create!
    
    As for any concerns about Hubpages not performing that some may have, trust me we're in good hands. I've checked out Hubpages over the years and can tell you without a doubt that the site has kept up to date on varying issues faced by sites like this, including on the SEO front. There is always room for improvement but right now I'd rate this website better on the SEO front than you could possibly get with a generic wordpress install on your own domain, for example. Some say SEO is dead but it's not, it's just another topic where the best of the best say very little, mostly because they spend their time testing and not writing about it, and there is a metric ton of misinformation on the subject. There is also a lot of people focusing on the minutia and missing inroads for bigger advancements, just worry about content quality and you're ahead of the game!
    
    Since I'm here, an improvement tip for Hubbers. One of the best tips I can give you is to interlink your articles where it makes sense(and not excessively so). If you have multiple articles about your favorite topics, discussing similar aspects of the same subjects, don't forget to mention and link to those from within your newer articles. By interlinking articles in a way that helps readers too you increase the value of your pages(to readers and in general) and help your article rise vs all the other similar articles on Hubpages and online in general. Keep it natural, don't fuss over anchor text, don't overdo it, but just adding 2-3 links between related articles goes a long, long way to helping yours rise above others online.
    
    Hubpages is doing this for you as well, see the index page where top articles are linked to, or your own profile page where your best is featured. Don't forget to do it within the articles themselves when it makes sense! More time creating, less time worrying about metrics = more profit in the long run regardless of CPM swings.
    
    Fact: I could literally double the ad yield on any website with a simple ad placement change but this would drive visitors away from the site at a higher rate resulting in lower engagement, fewer followers and a lower long-term outlook. I'd actually be concerned if the CPM or bounce rates got too high as well. I have no doubt hubpages staff knows all of this already, we're in good hands!

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       HoneyBBposted 7 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks Jean for sharing your insight. The points you make and tips you give can prove to be invaluable to writers. No stress.

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       theraggededgeposted 7 years agoin reply to this

       I agree with most of what you say, but HubPages tends to discourage interlinking, especially between the vertical sites. They will allow one or two links but it's a push to get any more in. For example, I have a series of 17 articles on the tarot court cards on Exemplore. There are four of each rank of Royal, plus an overview. Each hub stands alone as complete in itself. However, it would make sense to link the four cards/articles, and also to the overview article, but HP doesn't let me. Some links have stayed intact, but most are removed by the editor.
       
       The featured hubs on profiles are selected by the hubber.

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    WryLiltposted 7 years ago

    Advertisers work off four quarters. Generally at the end of each quarter you'll see a rise as marketing budgets are used up, then the biggest ad spend in the fourth quarter (leading up to Christmas) and the lowest starting in Q1.
    
    You'll see that, despite fluctuations and Google algorithm changes, this holds true as a general rule each year.

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    Daniel Mollatposted 7 years ago

    Pardon my ignorance, what are CPMs? How is this related to page views?

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       Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

       CPM means “Cost Per Thousand”, referring to ad impressions.

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          wildernessposted 7 years agoin reply to this

          A little confusing in the context of hubbers on HP.  May I add that in that context it refers to earnings per thousand impressions?  And that only impressions credited to the hubber rather than HP, are counted?

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             lobobrandonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

             Exactly.

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             Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

             True, I was thinking the same thing when I posted the answer, but chose to stick with "Cost" since it's the C in the CPM and it's the cost to the advertiser. 
             
             The impressions are 60% to the Hubber and 40% to HP. Just adding that for Daniel to know.

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    Daniel Mollatposted 7 years ago

    Where do I find the CPM numbers? No CPM numbers show in my statistics page in my account, only the page views.

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       wildernessposted 7 years agoin reply to this

       Go to "earnings", then "earnings reports" and choose "ad program" as a filter.

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    Rochelle Frankposted 7 years ago

    Look at "Earnings" under that heading click on Settings, (not Earnings Reports)  Then click Ad Program Reports In the HubPages Earning Programs box. You should see a list of daily impressions, CPMs and earnings

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15. 59

    Daniel Mollatposted 7 years ago

    Hey guys,
    Thanks very much for the clarification. I'm glad there are so many here who are willing to help newbies. I'm really learning a lot by posting here and getting accurate and direct answers.

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